The sun was nowhere to be seen this morning as I picked up my co-volunteer Jay and headed to the shuttle bus. We arrived at the venue early to go and check out the women's ski cross event. We managed to see three runs of the 1/8 finals and saw a few Canadians move through to the next round including Ashley McIvor who eventually went on to win gold for Canada! The second biggest event of the day was the arrival of real snow falling on the mountain. It was wet sticky snow but snow nonetheless and it was awesome. We had forgotten what color real snow was and it stood out as bright white in contrast to the greyish crap we have been trying to work with. Somewhere between 5 - 10 cm fell during our shift of 1:45 - 9:30. The downfall was our 'waterproof' uniforms were not so much and the chop/step plus all the other work we were doing made us pretty sweaty so by the end of the night we were pretty much soaked.
Both the men and women who had qualified earlier in the week practiced so there were half as many skiers on the hill which made our work a bit easier. I spent the most time on my skis so far with repeated side slips to clear snow from the inrun to the jumps. I don't think I have carved a single turn in 2 weeks - just side stepping and slipping.
Wrapped things up a little after 9 and headed back to the lodge to sign out. The bonus for being wet and tired was free hotdogs left over from the event concessions. Headed down and back into the rain of the city and arrived back at New West a little after 11 PM. One more day off tomorrow then back for the men's finals Thursday night. I will be up on the knoll where the jumps are for that event so keep your eyes peeled for me. I guess I kind of blend in with the rest of the 'Shovel Militia' or 'Smurf Crew' as we are called.
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